Cambridge foster-care community remembers Vivienne Campbell

Thursday

Nov 12, 2015 at 9:41 AMNov 12, 2015 at 9:41 AM

The Cambridge foster-care community recently suffered a huge loss with the passing of longtime intensive foster parent, Vivienne Campbell, on Oct. 25.

Working for the Cambridge Family and Children’s Services for almost 20 years, Campbell provided a therapeutic environment for kids who had experienced a greater level of trauma than typical foster children, according to Michelle Drolsbaugh, director of the Intensive Foster Care Program at Cambridge Family and Children’s Services.

The children Campbell took into her home typically came from dangerous situations or especially troubling circumstances, and Campbell was deeply invested in helping them heal.

“Even though she didn’t have a degree in social work and she wasn’t a therapist, she had so many more skills than a lot of professionals do around actually managing children,” Drolsbaugh said.

One young girl, Drolsbaugh recalled, had a “horrific” sexual abuse history and didn’t understand boundaries. Campbell taught her how to be respectful of her own body.

When the child moved on from her home, Campbell maintained a relationship with the family that took her in, and acted as an extended family member to provide future guidance.

Campbell also cared for children who threw tantrums that lasted for hours on end. Regardless of where the child was, whether at school or in a therapy session, Campbell would go to them and help them through their outburst, said Drolsbaugh. She worked with children to develop their skills to manage their emotions and stop them from having tantrums altogether.

“People will remember her kindness – she was always willing to help somebody. It didn’t matter if she knew you or not, she treated you like a family member. That was just my mom,” said Campbell’s daughter, Kerry Grant.

Grant said her mother always reminded her to treat foster children as if they were her own.

Campbell was also a strong advocate for her foster children’s educations. She always attended school meetings and frequently interacted with school officials to ensure the children’s needs were met.

“She would really hold [the schools] accountable. She would call them and say, you really need to provide this kind of education service. You can’t just call me to pick up the child every day because you don’t like the way they’re behaving. You need to work with them,” Drolsbaugh said.

Drolsbaugh said children often misjudged Campbell at first since she walked around with an oxygen tank due to a breathing disability.

“She was judged pretty harshly most of the time. But then kids would meet her, and they would just fall in love with her, and her family, and her home,” Drolsbaugh said.

Campbell, who was born in Montego Bay, Jamaica, in 1953, migrated to the United States with her two children in 1981 and settled in Cambridge. There she met her husband, Rudolph Campbell, and together they had a son. Campbell also became a stepparent to Rudolph’s two kids, in addition to opening her home to numerous other children in need.

Over the years, Campbell took in fewer children than other foster parents might have, because she kept them for longer periods of time. Her role was to stabilize children and provide therapeutic work for them. This meant helping them to succeed in school, create boundaries, and support them as they moved on to the next stage, which would be adoption, guardianship or kinship placement.

There is also a limit to the number of children a foster parent can have in their home at one time, and for how long they can stay. As Drolsbaugh explained, foster care is not meant to be permanent.

“She was always really clear that she loved the kids, but she didn’t want to make a permanent commitment, because she wanted to make sure she could help more children,” Drolsbaugh said.

Campbell’s legacy of generosity and kindness lives on through her family who run several different foster homes in Cambridge. Two of her biological children, as well as her sister and her two cousins, round out five foster homes in Cambridge where Campbell acted as the matriarch. Her family constantly turned to her for emotional and practical support, and looked to her as the head of the household. At the time of her passing, Campbell was fostering a young girl, and her daughter, Kerry Grant, has since stepped up to take her place as parent.

In addition to Grant, Campbell’s son, Vinroy Paul, is also a foster parent. Campbell would stress to her children the importance of being a foster parent out of love for the children, not for the money.

“She always said, they’ll grow out of their clothes, but they’ll never grow out of the love that you have for them. [The children] always remember kindness and the way people treated them, so always be good and kind to them,” Grant said.

In addition to Campbell’s family, the community has also been greatly impacted by her loss. Her funeral, held at the end of October, was filled with young people whose lives she had touched. Campbell would host big Sunday dinners open to anyone, whether a foster child or just a child in the community, and many felt an overwhelming connection to her.

“She would always welcome people in general into her home. To everybody she felt like their grandmother who would love them unconditionally, who always had a great meal for them, and who was always there with a hug and a laugh,” Drolsbaugh said.